Claire wriggles her foot back into its black flip flop down on the wood floor. With her foot comfortably returned to its shoe, she bends down and reaches over to her right, lifting the empty shoebox and the white plate before rising again. Tucking both objects under one arm, she starts heading towards the attic’s exit. As she walks, she turns her head and looks down at the shoebox on the floor containing the shrunken people. She reaches the stairs and thinks to herself as she descends them. “I almost wish some of them showed a little more backbone and refused to get into the box. I can’t even imagine how one of their tiny bodies would feel squirming against my soles.” This thought brings a large grin to her face. “Oh well, I guess there’s going to be plenty of time to find out. And at least now I know just how easy it’s going to be to get them to do what I want.”
Her flip flops touch down on the carpet below as she steps off the last stair. She lifts the stairs and pushes them back up and into the attic. After the stairs have been tucked away securely, Claire moves the latch into place for extra safety. Upon completing this task, she begins walking through the house, soon reaching the kitchen, depositing the plate in the sink before exiting through the back door with the empty shoebox still tucked under her arm.
Claire is a smart girl. She knows she has an important job to do. She is the only full-sized person aware of the fact that Michael and his friends have shrunk themselves. If she wants to keep it that way, then there is evidence that must be taken care of. Claire stands at the very end of the road, a bit past Michael and Amy’s home, her own house much further away on the opposite side. The empty shoebox rests on the ground at her feet with its lid removed as she breathes in the fresh air and enjoys the chirping of birds while she looks over the parked vehicles of Michael and Amy’s guests.
The closest vehicle to the young woman is a bright yellow sports car. The vanity plates read “KEWLGUY.” Claire looks it over and can’t help but laugh. “WOW! How obnoxious. I wonder which little idiot actually drives this.” She reaches a hand into her shorts pocket and fishes for something. “Here we go” she says as she pulls the device out and aims it at the yellow car. She pulls the trigger. Nothing happens. “What the… oh, DUH!” Claire presses the first blue button on the left, setting the device to the shrink setting. It had still been set to the option for restoring things that had already been shrunk as the last time the device had been used was to return the apple to its original size back in her living room.
With the proper setting entered, Claire aims the device at the yellow vehicle once again. She pulls the trigger and watches as the full-sized sports car takes on the appearance of a child’s toy on the ground in front of her. “WOW!” She steps up to the little car and pokes the back of it softly with the front of her black flip flop, contact with the foam causing it to roll forward a couple inches before she bends down and picks it up between her finger and thumb. “Awww, it’s so cute!“ she says as she looks over the vehicle in her hand. She walks back to the shoebox sitting on the ground behind her and kneels down, gently placing the mini sports car inside.
Michael and the rest of the group lay sulkily within the darkness of their cardboard confines. Jim stumbles around in the dark with his arms reaching out ahead of him as he explores the area for his truck. He bumps into the vehicle and continues running his hands along it until he is able to locate the front door. He pulls at the handle, opens the door and lifts himself up into the cab. With his keys in his hand, he fumbles around in search of the ignition. He finally manages to find his target and the headlights illuminate the shoebox, the group members scattered about inside quickly close their eyes, unprepared for the onslaught of radiance. “Let there be light!” Jim exclaims as he jumps out of his truck and joins the rest of the group on the brown cardboard floor.
With their eyes now adjusted to the light, everyone gathers into one corner of the box, seating themselves with their backs resting against the walls and their heads hanging low.
“I can’t believe she would do this to us.” says Amy.
“We haven’t lived here long, but since we have, she’s always seemed like such a nice girl” says Michael.
“Well I guess you’re just an excellent judge of character” says Jennifer sarcastically.
“I don’t understand why she would keep us here like this.” Michael scratches his head and rubs at his eyes. “Maybe this is all a joke. Maybe she’ll be back very soon and return us to normal after she thinks she’s given us a good scare and we’ll all laugh about it later.”
“A joke?!” Jennifer stands up quickly, yelling angrily at Michael. “Yeah, this is SOME fucking joke, Michael! I can’t decide what the funniest part for me has been so far, so why don’t you help me out? Was it when my best friend… your WIFE… when she almost stomped on me and everyone else here? Was it when I got dumped onto and carried around on some young bitch’s smelly flip flop? No, wait. I think the most hilarious part so far has been getting locked up in a FUCKING shoebox with the guy responsible for all of this, YOU!”
Scott stands and approaches his girlfriend, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Come on, honey, calm down. You know this isn’t gonna help anything.”
“NO! She’s right! He’s to blame for ALL of this!” Keith jumps to his feet and starts storming angrily towards Michael. “You just HAD to show off your new invention. Then you just HAD to lead us straight into the clutches of this giant bitch after you fucked us up with your machine! We might be an inch tall, but I know I’ve still got enough strength to make YOU bleed!”
Isaac rises and quickly puts himself in front of Michael, stopping Keith in his tracks on his warpath. “Hey! That’s enough! Everybody needs to calm down. Like Scott said, this sort of thing isn’t going to help matters at all. Michael didn’t mean for any of this to happen, and you KNOW that. Who asked to see Michael’s invention in the first place? We did. Sure, we had no idea what it was capable of, but maybe we’re all a little responsible for our current situation. And when Michael came up with the plan to head for this Claire girl, did any of us propose a SINGLE alternative? No. We all agreed this was our best hope for rescue. If one of us can be responsible for this, then we all can. Michael didn’t have the power in his hands and refuse to grow us back. Michael didn’t carry us into this attic on a dinner plate. Michael didn’t put us in this box. Michael isn’t our enemy here. Claire is.”
The group listens to Isaac’s words of reason. “I’m… I’m sorry, Michael” says Keith, now starting to calm down. “I lost my temper. I’m just really frustrated right now. It’s been one hell of a day. Isaac‘s right though, you didn‘t intend for any of this to happen. Like it or not, we‘re all in this mess together, even you.”
“You don’t need to apologize, you have every right to be upset with me. You all do. I know it wouldn’t help anything, but I wish you could all understand how sorry I am for all of this. I’ve put my wife and all of our closest friends in danger with my invention and now it’s in the hands of a girl on a power trip.”
“What do you think we should do, Michael?” asks Jim. “Should we try and bust out of this box? It’s just cardboard. Maybe I can tear through it with my big blue beauty over there” He motions to his truck parked in another corner of the shoebox. “Hell, I bet I could just ram the walls a few times and tip this whole thing over! The lid will come off and we’d be free!”
Michael looks at his friend with a very serious look on his face. “Jim, I hate to have to tell you what you don’t want to hear but as powerful as your truck is, at it’s current size there’s no way you’re driving through these cardboard walls… or flipping the box. Even if either of these things were possible, there’s no escaping this attic. We’re sealed in. And if Claire had left the stairs down, which we know she didn’t because we could hear her locking them back into place when she left us up here, there would be no way for us to reach the bottom of them without plummeting to our deaths.”
“But if we could get out of this box we could hide behind something or in one of the other boxes up here before she gets back.” says Jim.
“That’s the exact reason she put us in this box” says Cynthia. “She didn’t want us hiding from her. What if we did… and she found us? I don’t wanna think about how she’d punish us for that. I think the smartest thing we can do right now is stay on her good side and not do anything to sour her mood.”
“And even if we managed to hide in something up here where she couldn’t find us, we’d all experience extreme pain from starving as we slowly die of dehydration” says Michael.
Claire still stands in the area where Michael and Amy’s guests had parked their cars earlier in the day, though the entire spot is now quite empty. The Parker home is far to her right and the edge of the woods is off to her left. Scattered around on the ground in front of her are four tiny vehicles. There’s a fancy looking cyan car and three equally small average looking cars, one silver, one purple, and one bright red. Further ahead of the girl sits one final car to be reduced in size. The white vehicle appears nearly dilapidated, dents and scratches are present all over its surface. “WOW a real shitbox” says Claire as she aims the device at the car. Light bursts forth from the device in her hand as the car quickly shrinks. She stands over the five tiny vehicles and looks down on them, still intrigued by the power of the device she’s used to transform their size with. After a moment she begins picking them up, one in each hand, and walking them to the cardboard shoebox, placing them gently inside with the little yellow sports car. With all of the vehicles neatly situated in the box, Claire places the lid on top and lifts it from the ground before she starts walking across the lawn towards Michaels house.
Claire reaches the porch and climbs the two small steps, setting the shoebox down upon her arrival. She has one last piece of evidence to take care of. She points the device in her hand at the large black machine. “I can’t believe I’m shrinking a shrink ray.” She pulls the trigger and the black machine appears miniaturized at her feet. Next she fires at the power source she had disconnected from the machine earlier, it too dwindles away before her. She bends down and removes both small objects from the ground with her fingers. She places them into the shoebox, sealing them in beneath the lid. With the box in her hands, Claire begins the trip back to her home as the sun begins to set in the warm June evening sky.